Standardized Testing Research Paper

With the added pressure to do well in school, standardized testing becomes a means to added stress, anxiety and further complicates the pressure to succeed in a student’s life. Rather than a focus on learning and understanding, school has become a massive rope skill memorization test designed to have students memorize subjects to pass the test, and forget the material the next minute for the next test. When asked to speak about standardized testing, education chairman, Larry Taylor, said “It’s heart-wrenching, and it’s also insanity when you see the level of achievement these kids are already doing and yet they can’t even pass this test.” (Smith). The utilization of standardized testing further exemplifies and validates the idea that no matter how hard or long you work in school, your work will never be worth the few answers you write for the

While a few standardized tests over a student’s school career can be helpful to make sure students are on track and teachers are educating their students, the United States education system has far too many standardized tests. The U.S should reduce the number of tests given to students each year. The current amount of testing stresses students and forces teachers to “teach to the test”. Standardized testing has not and will not improve the American school

Standardized tests are unnecessary because they are excruciating to the minds of many innocent students. Each year, the tests get tougher and stricter until the students cannot process their own thoughts. The tests become torturous to the minds of those only starting in the world of tests. The students already battling in the war are continuing to fall deeper and deeper into the world of uncreativity and narrowness. As the walls narrow in on them, they are lost and unable to become innovative thinkers. Moreover, the implementation of standardized tests into the public school systems of the United States of America has controversially raised two different views –the proponents versus the opponents in the battle of the effectiveness of

Students are overwhelmed with school, work, extra-curricular activities, family, etc. Perhaps standardized tests are a major contributor to students’ stress. A standardized test is any test scored in a consistent manner and requires test-takers to answer identical questions. Among the most common include the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the American College Test (ACT). According to the article “Standardized Testing Has Negatively Impacted Public Schools” from Opposing Viewpoints in Context, the beginnings of standardized tests occurred during World War I when the American Psychological Association developed a “ground-administered test” to eliminate inefficient recruits (Solley 3). Today, standardized tests are necessary for college admission. Just last month, in March of 2016, College Board, the non-profit organization responsible for administering the SAT, altered the format of the test. It is now formatted more similar to the ACT and includes an optional essay reducing the score from 2400 to 1600. Many advocates argue standardized tests accurately measure academic intelligence and hold teachers and schools accountable. In today’s society, standardized tests have become the norm, and unfortunately, people overlook their negative effects despite research substantiating arguments about their disadvantages. Standardized tests are disadvantageous because they hinder education and contain bias.

The use of standardized testing to measure students’ knowledge is an inaccurate reflection of their capabilities. By being forced to take a test that does not effectively show their abilities, students become overstressed, and the tests themselves do not promote true academic achievement. Rather than learning about subjects in order to gain knowledge, students simply memorize facts and formulas to get a decent test score. Standardized tests are not an appropriate measure of student performance, only benefit certain groups of students, and do not prepare students for the real world.

At a glance scatter plots show whether a relationship exists between two sets of data. This data will determine correlations between students taking the SAT and ACT. Because this scatter plot is falling from left to right it has a negative slope, so therefore there is a negative correlation between these two sets of data. Although these points are falling, it is not a clear negative relationship since the clustered points are not in a straight line. Therefore, this relationship is a weak, negative relationship.

In standardized tests I always get a good grade and in some occasions I have got some high scores on them. I think that I consider myself a good test taker because when I have a test really important I always sleep early, practice things that might be on the test, and the most important for me is to try my best in every question no matter if I never practice doing that question. I also consider myself a good standardized test taker because in the past couple of years I have gotten good grades and it has made me proud. I never been this way because I used to think that school was just a joke because I was going to become a pro soccer player, but now I can see that in order for me to become a soccer player I have to study a lot specially science

Ever since then standardized testing has been a huge part of education. Teachers across the nation had to teach to the curriculum instead of what they thought the students needed to learn. Nowadays colleges strictly look at ACT and SAT scores rather than classroom grades, because they believe that some teachers grade on a curve and are not giving the students a fair chance. Standardized tests are an unreliable measure of student performance. A 2001 study published by the Brookings Institution found that 50-80% of year-over-year tests core improvements were temporary and “caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning…”(“Standardized Tests”). Teachers are stressed over if they are teaching “correctly”. They went to a 4-year college, some even more, to get a degree in something that they wanted to do, either for themselves or for the children, and now they have to “teach to the test”. Tests can only measure a portion of the goals of education. A pschometrician, Daniel Koretz says, “standardized tests usually do not provide a direct and complete measure of educational achievement.”(Harris, Harris, and Smith).

Where are we headed as our future generations prepare to take over and lead our nation? Will our nation’s graduating students be competent and equipped to lead us into a successful future? How do we determine if we are preparing them to be intelligent enough to be successful in this world? What is intelligence and success? And is that all it takes to lead a successful nation? It has been proven that student performance and higher grades can dramatically increase the economic growth of a nation, but is this all we need? Has Washington (Govenement) put in place the best method for establishing a new generation to lead our country? Or should we ask, do we want Washington to be taking the lead of our educational system?

Do you ever feel like test never have what you actually learned? Some people support standardized test and some people are against it. I believe that tests do not help the students because testing is expensive, the teachers need to spend more time on what kids struggle with, and should send less time preparing and learn what we need to learn.

Today, it can be observed that society has shifted education drastically from the time schools were constituted, to now. Throughout history, schools have gone from private, where only the elite can attend, to public schools where virtually anyone can attend. One of the factors that goes along with education is standardized testing. Frederick J. Kelly, father of the standardized test, once said, “These tests are too crude to be used, and should be abandoned.” Not only has this shift occurred within education itself, but it has occurred within the testing concepts found within standardized testing so much so that the founder of these tests has chosen to give up on it.

“Our mechanical, industrialized civilization is concerned with averages, with percents. The mental habit which inflects this social subordinates education and social arrangements based on averaged gross inferiorities and superiorities” --John Dewey.

A very current and ongoing important issue happening within the education system is standardized testing. A standardized test is any examination that's administered and scored in a calculated, standard manner. There are two major kinds of standardized tests: aptitude tests and achievement tests. Standardized aptitude tests predict how well students might perform in some subsequent educational setting. The most common examples are the SAT’s and the ACT’s. The SAT and the ACT attempt to estimate how well high school students will perform in college. But standardized test scores are what citizens and school board members rely on when they evaluate a school's effectiveness. Nationally, five such tests are in use: California Achievement Tests,

Standardized testing is a collectively accepted aspect of education today, it is used to evaluate if students of all ages are being shaped and educated up to the common standard set by the government. Standardized testing can be seen in almost all educational settings from kindergarten classes to exit exams for nurse practioners. Standardized testing came into play when former President George Bush ran his campaign on being the education president and enacted the No Child Left behind Act. Under this act all educational districts are subject to standards and core values they must meet to receive accreditation and funding from the government. Just the other day many students at Moorcroft high school student had to take a

The debate on standardized tests and its adequacy in testing a student’s knowledge about a subject has been going on for many years. Tests, in general, has been around for centuries and without them there would not be progress and no gleams of progress. Students ranging from elementary school to high school have experienced standardized testing. Teachers, educators, and parents are also involved in the students’ lives, which revolves around the tests, one way or another. There are many views on standardized test. However, the three most common views are: educators who are for standardized test which benefits students, educators who are at the other extreme of opposing standardized tests, and educators who view tests are a benefit if done in appropriate amounts.